


You Are My Natural Selection

by SeedySins (ChangelingDreams)



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Bliss (Far Cry), Blood and Violence, Canonical Character Death, Conditioning, Denial, Drowning, Dubious Morality, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Romance, F/M, Family Dynamics, Gaslighting, Introspection, Mental Health Issues, Mind Manipulation, Moral Dilemmas, Obsessive Behavior, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Religious Fanaticism, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Suicidal Thoughts, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:56:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29828058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChangelingDreams/pseuds/SeedySins
Summary: The words echo in her head, scribing themselves into her mind with letters of flame and blood.My hunters are coming for you.Rook lifts a hand to settle it over her ribs, just underneath her right breast, where those words have been written into her skin for as long as she remembers. Her heart pounds loudly to the left of them. Her Mark. His words. The enormity of what it means is hard to grasp, and her mind reels with it as she struggles to comprehend what just happened.Jacob Seed is her Soulmate.
Relationships: Female Deputy | Judge/Jacob Seed
Comments: 46
Kudos: 50





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Jacob Seed/FemDep Soulmate AU. Non-descript, unnamed Rook. 
> 
> Slow burn. Sort of a fix-it fic? Pretty dark at times, but only slightly darker than canon. Lighter in some ways. Faith bites it, other major character deaths unlikely but not off the table.
> 
> The Seeds are not good people, but they're people. Rook is not good people, but she tries. Joseph Seed is not good people and also a psychotic asshole.
> 
> Still with me? Off we go, then.

Rook is rifling through the pockets of a dead Peggie when her radio crackles with static. The radio of the stalled truck next to her fizzes and pops into life at the same time, though it's turned down so low the broadcast is nothing more than a quiet buzz. She slips her handheld from the clip on her belt, sits back on her haunches and listens to the voice rumbling out from the tinny speaker. More cult propaganda, from the sound of it. Letting the flock know how insignificant and pathetic she is. Despite the fact that they've got a significant part of their forces out patrolling the land and skies for her. 

_ The enemy is both weak and a threat. Gotta love that cult double-think.  _

"I want this coward to know that they have my attention," the radio hisses at her. 

_ Right back at you, asshole.  _

A short pause, and then the voice speaks up again, suddenly crystal clear in her ears as it addresses her directly. 

"My hunters are coming for you. There's nowhere you can run."

_ My hunters are coming for you.  _

The words echo in her head, scribing themselves into her mind with letters of flame and blood. 

**_My hunters are coming for you._ **

She lifts a hand to settle it over her ribs, just underneath her right breast, where those words have been written into her skin for as long as she remembers. Her heart pounds loudly to the left of them. Her Mark. His words. The enormity of what it means is hard to grasp, and Rook's mind reels with it as she struggles to comprehend what just happened. 

Jacob Seed is her Soulmate. 

_ My hunters are coming for you.  _

She's always wondered about those words, why the first thing her Soulmate would say to her was destined to be something that sounds so menacing. 

Over the years, she'd made up scenarios in which they would make harmless sense. A ranger contacting her to reassure her help is on the way out in the wilds. A stranger reading a line of a book out loud. Anything she could think of that wouldn't be a downright threat. 

If she'd known it would turn out to be Jacob fucking Seed letting her know he's sent his Chosen after her, she'd have drunk herself into an early grave. 

_ My hunters are coming for you.  _

Rook realises she's been frozen in place for longer than is advisable, wide out in the open like a sitting duck. 

_ Shit.  _

She hastily clips her radio back to her belt and slinks into the tall grass on the side of the road, staying low to the ground. The shadows of the trees welcome her in their cool embrace as she makes her way to a more covered position. She needs to get away from the truck she took down. The arrow hole in its driver's temple is as good as a calling card, pointing to where she's been. Last night's rain has turned the earth damp and soft, and if she doesn't want to leave a nice clear track for the hunters to follow, she'll have to get onto more rocky terrain. 

Rook moves through the woods as quietly as she can while still hauling ass. Getting personally targeted by the Seeds has so far failed to be a recipe for a good time. She isn't sure if John intended to actually drown her, before Joseph put a stop to it, but he sure had a damned good go at it. When Faith had taken her on that little Bliss-induced skydiving trip, the Seeds had still wanted her alive, by their own admission. But after Rook took down the giant statue of Joseph and burned his words, the Father had seemed  _ pissed.  _ She isn't sure if the cult's orders have changed from capture to kill since she arrived in the Whitetail Mountains. Hasn't left anyone alive that could tell her. 

Wouldn't that be the ultimate kick in the teeth, Rook thinks wryly. Finally finding her Soulmate, only to end up dead at his hands before he has a chance to find out who she is. Maybe that'd be the best outcome, all things considered. The alternative would be even worse. She shudders to think what the Seeds would do with the knowledge that Fate has bound her and their oldest sibling together _.  _ She can't let them find out. Can't let the Resistance know, either. She'd lose all trust they have in her. Best case scenario? They tell her to get lost, and she's on her own, without anyone to back her up while she tries to get Pratt and Hudson out of the cult's claws. Worst case scenario? They try using her as a bargaining chip against her will, or decide she's too much of a liability and simply shoot her. 

She can't even blame them for it. Soulmate bonds are the subject of legend for a reason. Those that fight against the ties that bind their soul to another either lose the battle eventually, or end up taking their own life rather than give in to the inevitable. Rook fights the sick feeling in her stomach at her prospects for the future. A life with Jacob Seed, psychopath militia leader of a cult that tortures and brainwashes its victims, or kissing the barrel of her service gun. 

She considers the possibility of turning her gun on Jacob instead, and the thought of killing her own Soulmate fills her with such intense, sudden revulsion she has to pause for a moment while fighting off the urge to be sick. She forces herself to get going again, stealing amongst the trees towards a large outcrop of rock that juts out from the slope of the mountainside. 

Maybe it isn't him, says a small, desperate part of her. As long as her first words to him don't match his Mark, there's still a chance Jacob Seed isn't her Soulmate. It happens, every once in a while. One person's words will match the ones written on the other's skin, but their own Mark doesn't reflect those of the other. Usually it's a case of everyday small talk, or several people in a related job repeating the same standard phrase to every customer they interact with. But the words written underneath Rook's breast are so unusual and out there that the odds of having them in common with someone else seem astronomically small. Still, there's a tiny chance the words are meant to be from someone else, that her  _ actual  _ Soulmate will have a better reason for saying them. God, she wants to believe there is a chance. That this isn't actually happening. That it isn't real. That there's a way out of this. 

The Bliss arrow hits her in the thigh like the kick of a horse, and Rook's legs collapse underneath her just as she reaches the foot of the cliff she was aiming for. 

_ There's nowhere you can run.  _

-

Rook rises to consciousness like a diver returning from the depths, her awareness distorted, like it's filtered through the murky water of a dark lake. Light reaches her eyes, bright and dark and bright again. It's followed by pain, dull at first, growing sharper as she breaks through the surface. A smooth voice rolls over her in gentle, calm waves, and it takes her a moment to realise she recognises it. Could never forget who it belongs to, now. 

His voice. 

"We let the weak dictate the powerful, and we are shocked to find ourselves adrift." 

What he's saying is meaningless compared to who is saying it, and a nauseating mix of dread and excitement fills Rook's belly as she opens her eyes to watch Jacob Seed slowly walk through the small room she's in, lecturing as he goes. Her vision is still blurry, tinged with the green hue of Bliss. She tries to blink the scene in front of her into focus, and as edges sharpen and movement loses the after image trailing in its wake, her eyes find Staci Pratt standing against the far wall, just to the side of the projector screen. 

_ He's alive. _

Relief floods her, though it's diminished by the purpling bruises on Pratt's face, the timid yet rigid way he holds himself. No restraints, she notices, though it doesn't look like he's here of his own free will, either. 

_ Ah hell, Staci. What did they do to you?  _

Jacob walks past the screen and into her view, drawing her attention like a magnet. It's the first time she's seen him since the brief glimpse she caught of him back at the church - she had other things on her mind than studying the oldest of the Seed brothers back then, and he hadn't registered as anything particular beyond an obvious threat. 

The Soldier is a tall man, is the first impression that strikes her. His physical power is evident in his broad build, the way he carries himself as he stalks through the room. He's confident in that power, too. No swagger, no unnecessary bravado; he moves with the casual, supple ease of a predator in its element. 

He's older than she'd first thought he was - he's got ten, fifteen years on her, at least. Battle scars pockmarking his face and arms. Burns and shrapnel, most likely. No grey in the red of his hair yet, but lines have worn themselves deep into his skin. Clear blue eyes like his brothers. The kind of blue that pierces, seems to cut right down to the soul. 

He's attractive, Rook realises. Not pretty and polished like his brother John, but handsome in a rugged way she's always rather fancied. Maybe it's the lingering effect of the Bliss talking, but if she'd met him in a bar before this entire mess ever happened, she could definitely see herself have a shot at taking him home for the night. 

_ Damn it. Not helping. _

Suddenly he's in front of her, looming. Those icy clear eyes boring into hers. She realises she has no idea what he's been talking about, if he addressed her directly at any point. She groggily looks up at him and remains silent, still too out of it to make an effort to scowl. 

"Can't say I'm impressed, Deputy," Jacob says. "You were surprisingly easy to bring in. With all the trouble you've been causing in Holland Valley and the Henbane… I have to say, I expected better from you."

He folds his hands over Rook's wrists, holding them to the armrests of the chair she's bound to as he brings his face level with hers. His touch is warm and firm, but not bruisingly so. Confident in his power, without feeling the need to assert it. 

Several replies line themselves up on her tongue, but she swallows them down, stays silent. He can't know, she reminds herself. And as long as she doesn't say anything to him, there's still that chance, however unlikely, that her words won't match his Mark. 

After a moment, Jacob exhales roughly through his nose in an approximation of amusement. 

"My brother and sister mentioned you weren't much of a talker. That's fine by me. I didn't bring you here to  _ talk,  _ after all."

He keeps his gaze locked with hers for another long moment, and Rook feels like she'd be pinned to her seat even without the ties around her wrists or Jacob's hands clasped over them. His eyes seem to be searching her for something. A reaction, maybe. If that's the case, she's going to have to disappoint him. Rook mutely stares up at the oldest Seed brother, feeling barely anything at all. No anger, no disgust, no defiance. Just a vague sense of bafflement that she's face to face with what she still doesn't want to believe is her Soulmate, and  _ this  _ is how it happens. 

There's something dissatisfied in Jacob's expression when he draws back and straightens up.  _ You and me both, buddy _ , Rook can't help but think, and watches with an odd sort of detachment as he turns to the side, picks up a little wooden box to turn its handle. Her wrists tingle with the memory of his hands around them, the air chill on her skin in their absence. 

"You will do what needs to be done," Jacob says, his tone measured and calm. "You will cull the herd."

He opens the box for her like it's a gift, and Rook's vision starts to bleed red as it tinkles out a familiar melody, haunting in its hollowness. 

_ Only you…  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That could have gone worse, I suppose. 
> 
> Not much, but still.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters to kick this show onto the road. Tentative twice-weekly schedule from here on out.

Jacob doesn't know why coming face to face with the Deputy has left him feeling uneasy. It was disappointing, sure. Tales of her exploits to the south have reached the Whitetail Mountains in what he might have written off as exaggerated accounts, if it wasn't for the reports of his own Chosen. The Deputy hasn't been in his region for very long, but she's managed to cause a surprising amount of damage to his operations in such a short time frame. She strikes and disappears like a ghost, leaving only corpses behind to tell of her passing. 

It's almost an insult to the men he's lost that his hunters brought her in as easily as they did. The one that took her down reported the Deputy had been found squatting aimlessly on the ground near a truck whose driver she'd killed. That she'd seemed agitated and disoriented while fleeing, had to halt briefly to retch. Maybe she's fallen ill. Or all the Bliss that Faith pumped into her system has damaged it in some way. Either way, watching the Project's biggest pain in the ass sit dumbly in a chair and blink owlishly up at him had been quite the letdown. He'd expected… something. Anything. He can't shake the nagging feeling that this wasn't how things were supposed to go down, when they came face to face. She'd seemed distracted, like the fact that she'd been captured and bound by arguably the most dangerous man in Hope County was less consequential than whatever else had been going through her head. 

Jacob doesn't think she even heard a word of his presentation. 

The Deputy had shown the kind of weakness he usually doesn't hesitate to burn out. But Joseph wants her alive, and while Jacob lost his faith in God years ago, he has faith in Joseph. She might be weak, but the weak have their purpose, and even Jacob has to admit that the Deputy is the ideal candidate for the purpose he has in mind for her. So he trains her, like he has trained so many other men and women and animals before. Drugs her to the gills with the modified Bliss serum. Links the bloodlust it wakes in her to his song, after the Bliss has rendered her mind wide open and defenseless. Has her run his drills, and when she's ready, the trial. And she does… fine. She's acceptable. She reaches the targets he sets out for her, but she isn't anything special. After all the trouble she's caused, the Deputy is unremarkable in how average she is. It's irritating beyond belief, because he knows she can do better. She's proven that she can do better. His methods just don't seem able to bring it out of her, and it frustrates the hell out of him. 

Jacob is watching the Deputy run the simulation for the third time in a row today, his arms crossed as he follows her progress on the screen in the surveillance room. She's making her way through the maze of hallways with measured caution, and he sighs as he leans into the microphone. 

"Watch your time," he tells her, finger on the comms button. 

She stiffens visibly, which she always does when he talks to her over the speakers. He can't figure out why. She should be used to hearing him talk to her throughout the simulation by now, but her reaction is the same every time, whether he shouts at her or speaks softly. 

Maybe it's time to try a different approach. 

Jacob runs his hand over his mouth as he watches the Deputy check a corner and down the simulated enemy hiding behind it. He presses down the comms button again, modulates his voice into something approximating encouragement. 

"Good," he says, gauging her reaction. 

The Deputy hesitates, but doesn't freeze the way she usually does. She continues on her way, and he feeds her small bits of positive feedback whenever she does something adequate. The effect is… surprisingly pronounced. Her flinching lessens each time he speaks to her, until it stops completely. Instead, his words seem to start steadying her. Her movements become more confident, her aim more true. The way she moves through the rooms turns less halting, as if she's stopped second-guessing herself. Once she's finished, he has her run the simulation again, sprinkling his usual directions with encouragement and praise, and this time he can see in her a glimpse of the woman that took the lumber mill from his people with nothing but a bow and a knife. 

"Well done," he tells her over the comms, before the simulation slips her out of consciousness again. 

So the Deputy thrives on positive reinforcement? Not his usual way of doing things, but the results are hard to argue with. He keeps at his new method the next day, and the ones that follow, watching her shed the shell of mediocrity and become faster, deadlier,  _ stronger.  _ Fluid in her violence. Merciless in her grace. She stalks the hallways and rooms like the cougar she's reported to be seen with, eliminates her opponents with ruthless efficiency. The satisfaction he feels at watching her reveal herself for what she can be, what she  _ is,  _ is shot through with something oddly close to pride. 

This must be what John sees in her, Jacob muses. His little brother has been practically obsessed with the wayward Deputy ever since she showed up and started making their life difficult. She wrecked most of John's operations in the valley and slipped right through the mazes in the net he'd cast around her, disappearing into the Henbane like one of Faith's apparitions. He'd figured his brother had gotten hung up on a pretty face - and the Deputy does have a pretty face, as irrelevant as that observation may be - but he has to concede that seeing her truly in action is pretty fascinating. 

She's still weak, of course. Weak to have gotten caught so easily, weak to have this apparent need for validation, revelling in it even when it comes from someone who is by all counts her enemy. But she's strong enough to fulfill her purpose, and that's all that matters. He has Pratt drop her off somewhere for Eli and his toy soldiers to find after one last conditioning session, and turns his full attention back to Project operations. 

Or he would, if the Deputy didn't continue to take up part of said attention, despite the fact that she's been set loose to go and buddy up with the Whitetail Militia. Jacob finds himself tempted to check on her, personally, despite the fact that's objectively not a good idea. She has to earn the Militia's trust, and that's not going to happen if they catch wind of her being monitored by the Project - let alone by Jacob himself. Better to let them believe she's presumed dead. Lure them into a false sense of security. Even so, curiosity nags at the back of his mind. He finds himself wondering what she's doing - how she's doing. It's unproductive, and an unwelcome intrusion on his day-to-day business. 

It's likely just a side effect of the altered method he used for her training. The time he spent praising and encouraging her must have left him with some measure of faux investment. He's not prideful enough to think he's immune to that kind of subtle, unintended conditioning, despite John's handiwork carved into his back. But it bothers him. Needles him that the Deputy has a presence in his mind even in her absence. He hates the idea that part of her has managed to get underneath his skin, no matter how small or inconsequential. Especially considering how unaffected she was by being face to face with him. It feels uncomfortably like a weakness. 

He allows himself one indulgence in his curiosity - using the Project's channels to dig up information on the Deputy. The more he knows about her, the more effectively he can mold her to her purpose, he tells himself. Unsurprisingly, he finds John has already done most of his work for him. The Deputy's file is detailed and thorough, and Jacob finds himself piecing together her life from the information available to him. She's a Hope County native, born and raised. An only child, raised by her mother after her father died in a logging accident when she was five. Several junior archery tournament medals. Likely learned from her mother, who's listed as county champion several years in a row, even making state champion a few times. Above average school performance, if only just. Attended college on an army scholarship ride. He raises an eyebrow at her subjects of choice. Not what he'd expected - but then he wouldn't know what to expect anyway. Solid GPA, commissioned into the army after graduation. Two tours of duty and an honorable discharge. He makes a note to see if he can dig up any details on her active service. Moved back home, unemployed for a while - taking care of her mother. Terminal illness. Passed away last year. She'd joined the local sheriff department four months later. Still a rookie, then. He wonders whose bright idea it was to take her along when they'd tried to arrest Joseph. Probably the Marshall. He could see that asshole demanding all available guns for his cock measuring contest. 

So she's ex-army, huh? Figures. Jacob doubts the Deputy would have accomplished a tenth of what she has without actual combat training. He finds himself wondering if there's anything else they have in common, and puts a stop to that line of thought immediately. She's an obstacle, a useful tool, and that's all there is to her. He's already let her take up too much of his mental real estate. This is where it ends, he tells himself. He forces himself to shake the thought of her off like a troublesome gnat, and refuses to acknowledge the way she haunts the back of his mind, another ghost to join the others that linger there. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea of Jacob pouting because Rook didn't pay attention to his presentation is hilarious to me.
> 
> I don't think we ever find out exactly how Jacob's conditioning works. I like to think he just drugs people out of their gourd on Bliss and has them run around a makeshift course with airsoft guns. Something along those lines.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick heads up that Rook's takes and opinions on various characters do not necessarily reflect those of the author. With that out of the way - enjoy an early update!

As the years passed Rook by without ever hearing the words scribed into her skin, she'd started to assume she was one of the many people who never get to meet their fated partner. Noone knows why only some Soulmates meet while most never find each other. Maybe destiny is only set in stone for those whose union plays an important part in the greater scheme of things. Maybe the threads of fate are simply woven loosely for everyone; easily tugged apart by choice and chance alike. A late bus, a cancelled holiday, a skipped night out could be all it takes to miss your moment. 

Sentiment assures those whose paths never cross with their other half that they will do so in another life. Rook has never been much for sentiment. She'd hoped, of course, when she was younger, but nipped that hope in the bud before it could turn obsessive. She’s seen it too often; people’s lives taken over by the search for their words, orchestrating scenarios to increase the chances of them being spoken. Always looking without ever finding. Consumed by the empty space inside them they’re convinced only a Soulmate could fill. Or paralysed by the choices before them, too afraid to pick a path in fear of missing out on the other. Better to take the disappointment and move on than cling to the possibility and fall into despair, Rook has always felt. If she never met her Soulmate, she'd survive just fine. She'd done without them all her life. She trusted that if she ever found them, they would be a welcome addition to her life, but not the axis around which she'd let her happiness spin. 

Rook doesn't particularly feel like Jacob Seed is a welcome addition to her life. 

Thanks to him, she now owes a debt to Eli and his motley crew of weekend warriors, which they were all too eager to cash in on. Getting away from one bearded ex-soldier trying to run his own army only to end up playing errand girl for another doesn't fill her with much in the way of gratitude. The Whitetails welcomed her with suspicion and demands, and their insular nature didn't endear her to them to begin with. It feels rather insulting that they think Rook still has to prove herself, after all she's done to fight the Project. That they still don't trust her to be on the right side, after the Seeds took her people. But as much as she hates to admit it - Rook needs the Whitetail Militia as much as they need her. Compared to fighting Eden's Gate in the mountains, wrecking John and Faith's operations to the south felt like child's play. But Jacob's Peggies are organised. Well-trained to the last man or woman. His outposts are well defended, with a solid mix of snipers, heavies and foot soldiers, rather than a ragtag collection of whoever can shoot the broad side of a barn. It's going to take more than just one Deputy turned vigilante to take on the Soldier. She’s starting to doubt her decision to move around as she has been. Maybe it would have been better to stick to Holland Valley until she could take on John. Maybe she’d have freed Hudson by now, if she had. But people are desperate for help all over the county, and Rook has never been good at leaving folk to fend for themselves.

It doesn’t stop her from worrying coming to the Whitetail Mountains was a mistake. She wouldn’t have gotten caught, if she hadn’t. It chills her that she barely remembers anything from her time as Jacob's captive. Just the hallways and rooms, the faceless opponents, blood and fire and his voice in her head, talking to her, guiding her, praising her. She hasn't mentioned those memories to Eli. They likely don't mean anything good, and she isn't too sure that Tammy isn't justified in wanting nothing to do with her. It was a nasty shock to find out that she lost time while she was captured. What had seemed to her no longer than a day or so, had turned out to be closer to three weeks. Almost a month. A lot of time to be in the hands of a lunatic who specialises in fucking with people’s heads. And to make things worse, Rook doesn't feel like she actually got away from Jacob at all. It’s worse than having Faith pop up all over the place in the Henbane. At least she could banish those apparitions, or ignore them. But Jacob’s presence lingers at the edges of her thoughts, like an insistent, violently inclined voice navigation assistant. _Turn left at the next exit and shoot your target through the head._

Rook doesn't know what he did or why, but Jacob Seed must have gotten into her head for a reason. She's pretty sure he didn't mistakenly believe her dead and leave her behind for the Whitetails to find. He doesn't strike her as the type of man to leave anything to chance. If he was looking to dump her body, he would've made sure she was actually dead before doing it. So he didn't intend to kill her, and the crimson dream he inflicted on her with that music box didn't feel like any kind of religious indoctrination, either. Tammy and Eli seem to know _something,_ but they're as reluctant to share information as they are suspicious of outsiders. Rook has picked up enough from shreds of overheard conversations and what little the Whitetails let slip to figure out she isn't the only one who's spent time in Jacob's chair. But those that do usually don't return to tell the tale. So what was it all for? What did he do to her? What does it all mean? 

Why did he let her go? 

Rook tries to set those kinds of thoughts aside, but finds it impossible to do so. She hasn't even managed to _start_ processing the fact that Jacob Seed might be her soulmate (he can't be, as long as she doesn't say anything to him this isn't real, she won't let it _be_ real), and all the ramifications that would come with. And as if the possibility of having her soul bound to this monster wasn't bad enough, he had to get inside her head as well. The thought of being tied to him in not one, but two revoltingly intimate ways is more than she knows how to deal with. It's no surprise that it affects her. Rook does the Whitetail's work for them in a haze of numb detachment, barely feeling more alive than one of Faith's Angels. Her senses feel clouded, and she makes mistakes; grave ones. Fatal ones. She loses two hostages to oversights she should not have missed. She almost gets herself killed in a firefight she wasn't prepared for, catching the edge of an explosion she'd set off herself. 

It's almost worse when the shock starts to wear off. Jacob's handiwork, or that of his people at least, is smeared in brutal strokes of blood all over the mountains. Every time she comes across a strung-up corpse or shaking captive or pile of burnt remains she's viciously reminded that this is who her soul is (could be? might be? must be?) twinned with. It makes her feel… _unclean._ There's enough blood on her hands as it is, shed for what she believes (hopes, prays) is the right side. If the other half of Rook's whole is capable of things like this, what does that say about her? She's no Tammy, torturing people for the cause, but she's inflicted her share of horrors in her time, and she's lost count of all the lives she's taken in her crusade against the cult. Some of the people she killed were only guilty of falling victim to the Project's forced conversions. They didn't even die for a cause they chose themselves. 

Rook finds herself sitting up at night in a deer stand, her bow cradled in her lap, crying silent tears for the cruel, callous death and suffering strung all through the beauty of the forest around her. For how tainted her home has become. For how tainted the discovery of her Soulmate has turned out to be, how tainted her bond makes her feel. She'd thought returning to Hope County would be a new start. She thought she’d left it all behind; the violence, the bloodshed. The war. But it's followed her. Clung to her, seeped into her skin, into her soul. Maybe it has always been there, and she just didn't know it. 

_There's nowhere you can run._

She runs anyway, in the end, feeling like a coward. Unable to face the constant stark reminders of the evil she's bound to, day in and day out. Eli agrees with her decision, unaware of her true motivation. He tells her it might be best to avoid the mountains for a while. She's done good work for the Whitetails, but it's drawn more heat than he's comfortable his people can handle right now. Causing a distraction elsewhere would play in their favour. So she turns south again. To the Henbane. To sheriff Whitehorse and Tracey and the others at the prison, and Sharky Boshaw who insists on being her best friend despite the fact that she doesn't deserve him. To Faith and her faithful, and the Bliss, more tempting than ever now she has so much more pain to drown. 

Of all the Seed siblings, Faith is Rook's least favorite. John might pretend his sadism is only a tool to force Atonement, but he doesn't dress it up as anything but what it is. Jacob doesn't even try to hide the fact he's a monster. Faith, on the other hand, offers poison in a pretty cup and promises it's sweet nectar, holds her victims and tells them they're saved while their minds twist and crumble into ruin. Her methods are insidious. Manipulation posing as love, indoctrination as acceptance. It's so far removed from Jacob's honest brutality that it's easy for Rook to detach herself from it. And as her pain turns to anger; rage against it. 

Rook doesn't want to think about Jacob and what he might be to her, what he might have done to her. She doesn't want to think at all. She partners up with Sharky, brings Hurk Jr. down from Fort Drubman to combine the forces of the two chaos cousins. In their company, thinking isn't necessary. She loses herself in the havoc they wreak, throwing herself into the battle against Faith with relish and abandon. Fuck Eden's Gate. Fuck the Seeds. Fuck every single one of the hateful sycophants that worship and support and enable them. Armed with fire and explosives, Rook's three-person guerilla band burns a swathe of destruction through the Henbane. 

"You know Shorty, when we first met I didn't think my partic'lar brand a' mayhem was your kinda thing," Sharky tells her, after they've turned a Bliss depot into a roaring inferno. 

He throws an arm over Rook's shoulder while they watch the flames rage from a more-or-less safe distance. Closer than she'd like, farther away than he would. At least they're upwind from all the fumes. God, she _hates_ Bliss. 

"Might not be my usual style, but it sure as hell does the job," she replies, giving him a grin that she doesn't quite feel. 

She doesn't tell Sharky that she doesn't _want_ to do things like she usually does. That using her preferred style of quiet, controlled operations feels too much like Jacob's methods. That when she's running around setting the world on fire, at least she's free from Jacob's calm, curt voice in her head, coaching her like she's still a rat running in his maze. She tells herself that wholesale violence is getting the job done just as well - and it is. 

It's gratifying, how much damage they can inflict. Fun, even. They crack jokes, taunt the Peggies, laugh in their faces while raining hell down on them. Make killing into a game, lives into numbers on a counter. Rook tells herself the Peggies deserve it. Eden's Gate started this nightmare. They only have themselves to blame. She has people to protect, good, innocent people, who never asked for any of this. And if the cult has it coming, if taking them out is justified, if what Rook does is necessary- why not find ways to make what she has to do more bearable? Why not take pride in it? If the cult wants to cast her as their anti-Christ, she's more than happy to play the role. The time for reason is long past. She doesn't _want_ to reason with people like Faith and John and Jacob, and their self-appointed Father. There would be no point to it. There is nothing she can say to them that will change their minds, and there's nothing they can say to her that will make her change hers. Not even if Jacob Seed is her Soulmate. Not even if there's a chance they're more alike than she's willing to admit. 

She believes that. She has to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Denial ain't just a river in Egypt, babe.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update schedule going forward will be Saturday/Wednesday.

Despite his reputation as a severe, cold man, Jacob Seed isn't often in a bad mood these days. He has his bad days, after worse nights, but he's always had the tendency to turn anything negative inward rather than take it out on those around him. He's been taking punches for others for so long it has become second nature. And ever since his brothers saved him and brought him home, into the embrace of their family, he's found contentment in the purpose they gave him. Society has no use for broken old men, but Eden's Gate  _ needs  _ him. Joseph needs him. Needs his expertise, his skills, his ability to pass them onto others. After a lifetime of feeling like a burden on others, being needed is the closest thing to happiness he's ever felt. Jacob embraces his purpose with gratitude, gives everything he has to protect the Project, because to protect the Project is to protect his family, and family is  _ everything.  _ His brothers are the only true constant in his life, the only ones who have never abandoned him or cast him aside. It's hard to be in a bad mood when every day, he's thankful for his family, and thankful to be what they need.

Lately though, Jacob's mood has been downright  _ foul. _

It's that goddamned Deputy, of course. She's been a thorn in his family's side ever since she walked into Joseph's church. And while she frustrates the hell out of his brothers and sister - even carefree Faith has been looking tense around the eyes and mouth lately - he can't help but feel like he's getting the worst of it. 

The Deputy has been irritating him ever since she left his custody. She'd made notable progress under his supervision, after he solved the problem of her underperformance. But once he set her free, she lapsed right back into being a disappointment. The ghost that haunted the south turned into a shadow of herself all over again. Jacob doesn't understand why the Deputy has let herself get so damned  _ sloppy.  _ He knows she can do better. He's seen her do better. The fact that she refuses to  _ do  _ better when he's not actively monitoring her feels like she's doing it on purpose, that she's trying to spite him. Every report he receives of yet another almost-botched raid on one of his outposts, yet another scrap in which she only managed to escape by the skin of her teeth, fuels his exasperated anger at her. Not that he wants the Deputy to succeed at her mission of taking down the Project - he just wants her to be ready for the mission he has for her. She's been letting him down, and it pisses him off to the point where he wishes she'd just get the hell out of his region and stop waving her strange streak of incompetence in his face. 

And then she does. And somehow it makes things  _ worse.  _

He shouldn't have been surprised when she relocated her efforts once again. The Deputy had fled both John and Faith's territory after they cranked up their vigilance; it makes sense that she'd get out of the Whitetail Mountains once she figured out he'd done the same. But the news still comes as somewhat of a shock for some reason. And what's worse, it bothers him. It bothers him how irritated he is by the fact that his cameras are no longer capable of tracking her, that he can't keep an eye on what she's doing, that he's having to rely on second-hand reports from Faith's far less reliable subordinates to find out what she's been up to. He'd told himself the need to track her movements stemmed from her being right underneath his nose, but now she's back in Faith's region, his urge to keep tabs on the Deputy has only intensified. The fact that she's returned to the Henbane means that right now she isn't even technically his problem, and he has even less justification for his continued interest. 

And if Jacob felt the Deputy took up a lax approach to his standards to spite him, what she's doing in the Henbane feels like a giant middle finger lifted in his direction. He reads through the reports Faith grudgingly shares with her brothers with a rising sense of outrage. The Deputy has taken up the company of Boshaw and Drubman Jr., local village idiots, and from the sound of it she's letting them rub off on her. With each recounted strike, the precise, methodical predator he remembers seems to disappear further. Only her ruthlessness is still recognisable in how she operates. 

He can't help but ruminate about what the fuck she thinks she's doing.  _ Why  _ she's doing this. He can't help but wonder if Faith has actively done something to turn the Deputy from a calculated infiltrator into a wrathful demon raining hellfire down on the Henbane. His so-called sister - Joseph insists they treat her like she's blood, but after the second Faith was replaced by the next, Jacob stopped making an effort - has been rather tight-lipped about the troubles in her territory. Afraid Joseph will decide her incompetence is at fault for the Deputy's successes, Jacob suspects. Not for the first time, he wishes the Father hadn't decided to restrict each Seed sibling to one section of the county. He's tried to argue with his brother about it, but in the end Joseph told him the question came down to whether he has faith in the Father or not. And while Jacob has no faith in God or his Voice, he has faith in Joseph. It's the only faith he has left. 

So he grits his teeth, makes do with the scraps of intel Faith deems fit to share. Resists the temptation to send his own hunters or planes into the Henbane to figure out what the hell is going on there. What has caused the Deputy to go off the rails like she has. Jacob wants to drag her back home by the scruff like a runaway pup, so he can keep an eye on her and figure out what went wrong in her training. Set her on the right path again. He hates that he can't. He hates how much it bothers him. He hates that she still lives rent-free in his head, when he should be focusing on matters he has actual control over. 

He's not particularly proud of it, but Jacob takes his frustration out on the deputy he  _ does  _ have under his control. Staci Pratt is as close to a failure as successful conversion has ever produced. Jacob's training aims to weed out the weak and turn the strong into warriors, wolves. He hasn't done anything different to Pratt than he's ever done to his Chosen, so it must be some twist or flaw in the deputy's character that had him come out as a dog instead. A terrified, beaten, broken dog. The way Pratt rolls over when Jacob as much as glances at him is frankly distasteful. If the man didn't make such effective bait to dangle in front of the Deputy's face, Jacob would have put him down long before now. And with no other outlet for the simmering rage he doesn't know how to deal with, Jacob turns to the constant reminder of his failings. The weak have their uses, and Staci Pratt serves as an adequate punching bag, at the least. Not in the literal sense; Jacob doesn't allow himself to lose control that badly. But he doesn't reign in his impatience, doesn't calm himself when his temper flares. He shows his displeasure openly, snaps and snarls whenever Pratt fucks up or simply doesn't hop quickly enough to whatever task he's given. He channels his anger at the Deputy into demeaning her colleague, and doesn't hold back on letting 'Peaches' know exactly what he thinks of him. Judging by the man's reaction, Jacob might as well have kicked him in the teeth. It only serves to irritate him further. 

_ Pathetic. Disappointing. A failure.  _

The Deputy (she gets the capital letter in his head because she is the only deputy worth notice to him) has the decency not to be as pitiful in her weakness as Pratt is, at least. She makes a mockery of her training, but at least she is  _ effective.  _ She still takes unnecessary risks, causes endless collateral damage, and pulls the kind of stunts that make him roll his eyes and suspect she's taking inspiration from 80's action movies, but she's getting away with it. Jacob is far from impressed, let alone proud, but he grudgingly acknowledges that the bone-headed nonsense she's indulging in is getting results. 

Which doesn't mean he isn't going to tan her hide, next time he gets his hands on her. 

Somehow, through brute force or sheer luck or Faith's failings, the Deputy manages to wrest the Marshall from his sister's hands. Jacob doesn't really see why that's supposed to be a big deal. The Marshall's brain has been marinating in Bliss for long enough to allow Faith to slither inside his head and turn him into her puppet. Having him escape with the Deputy is closer to Jacob's plan to deal with Eli than any real win on part of the Resistance. If Faith actually had any sense of strategy, she'd have orchestrated the whole thing herself. But Joseph seems to find it important enough to call a family meeting over, so Jacob finds himself flying down to the Father's island, leaving his mountains behind for the compound in the center of the county. 

He reluctantly leaves his plane in the hands of Joseph's attendants, refuses the offer to be accompanied to the Father's home. The slavish worship Joseph's followers display has always made him feel uneasy, and he hasn't grown any more fond of it after having a simpering Pratt tail him all day long. John welcomes him when he reaches the gates of the compound, and Jacob feels himself smile as he pulls his brother into a firm hug, taking strength from the embrace. 

"How are things out in the sticks?" John asks him, pulling back to give Jacob his trademark charming smile. 

"Going well enough," Jacob replies. 

They fall into step together, leisurely making their way towards Joseph's cabin. 

"A lot better without a certain stick getting stuck in the wheels, I imagine," John muses, his lips quirking in that smug-little-shit smirk that Jacob is convinced only little brothers can pull off. 

"You'd be speaking from experience," Jacob replies, and John laughs easily and claps him on the back. 

"Don't let poor Faith hear us. She's had to deal with the slippery little bitch for a month now. Though I'd hoped our Deputy would show sister dear how annoying the disappearing act gets, rather than run around the place like a bull in a china shop. That might have almost been worth all the trouble."

John's levity lifts Jacob's spirits as well, and he allows a small chuckle to roll out at his brother's comment. He wishes there was more time for them to spend together. A selfish wish, as they need all the time they can get to prepare for the Collapse. But just being with his family warms him like the sun on his face, soaking into his scarred skin. It reminds him of what he's fighting for, and that he's blessed to have something worth fighting for at all. 

Faith greets her adopted brothers together with the Father. After the Deputy took control of the Jessop conservatory, their sister has been spending most of her time at the compound, licking her wounds and organising the Bliss production from a distance. She's a marvellous actress, Jacob reflects. She's all sunshine and flowers as she welcomes them, trailing the faint glitter of Bliss behind her as she leads her brothers inside. Looking at her, you'd have no idea she's in the middle of waging a losing war against a stubbornly relentless opponent - one she's not allowed to harm, no less. Not unless you catch the brief moments her mask slips, showing the carefully hidden tension in the narrowing of her lips, or in the tightness with which she holds her cutlery as they sit down for their family dinner. 

Joseph keeps the conversation light as they eat, asking them questions that when answered highlight the progress his Heralds have been making. Faith especially seems heartened by the chance to share her accomplishments rather than dwell on her failures. Joseph has always been good at this. Making people feel good about themselves. Like they're capable of great things, with just a little guidance to help them on their way. To Jacob's surprise, the Father avoids doling out any admonishing altogether. It seems they were brought here to have their spirits lifted, and it works. Faith relaxes in the easy-going atmosphere, and John sits up more straight, as if a weight Jacob hadn't noticed he'd been carrying has been lifted from his shoulders. Laughter fills the dining room, rare and precious these days. Jacob is struck by how much he needed this. How much they all needed this, with all the pressure every one of them has been under, ever since the First Seal was broken. Joseph tells his siblings he loves them, a quiet but genuine smile on his lips, and Jacob feels strengthened again by how unreservedly he believes those words. 

_ Family is everything.  _

The Seed siblings move outside after dinner to share drinks by a fire pit. (Non-alcoholic, of course. If there's one thing Jacob misses about life before the Project, it's cold beer or a stiff drink every now and then.) Eventually, the world outside their bubble can't help but break through once more, and talk turns towards their shared antagonist. 

"Might be useful to allocate some resources from Holland Valley and the Whitetails to the Henbane," Jacob suggests, though he already knows how Joseph will respond. 

As expected, the Father shakes his head, and places a hand over Faith's, who's sat at his side. Jacob doesn't miss the way a muscle in her forearm twitches, as if she's stopping herself from jumping at the touch. 

"Leading our wayward deputy to the Path is Faith's test," Joseph says softly. "Just as it is John's test to make her atone for her Sin, and yours to show her her Purpose."

He looks each of them in the eyes, one by one, ending with Jacob. 

"The Deputy  _ must  _ join our Family."

Joseph's focus lingers on Jacob for another moment, before he addresses all of them again. 

"The Lord has shown me another vision," he continues, speaking slowly, as if to impress the importance of his words onto them. "She must be with us at the End. I have seen her with us, and our Garden prospers. But if we fail to bring her home…"

Joseph's voice turns heavy and grim, and Jacob notices John tense up next to him. 

"Our Family will fall to Ruin, and all else with it."

The Father sits back in his chair and folds his hands over his knee. Faith draws her hands into her lap, curling one over the other. The following silence that lays over the room is uncomfortable. The relaxed, easy-going mood seems to have dissipated entirely. 

"Well, I guess that crosses mounting her head over my fireplace off my list of interior renovations," John sighs after a moment, breaking the tension. 

Jacob huffs out a soft sound of amusement, and Faith rises from her chair to sit on her haunches next to John's, a bright smile laid on her lips as if it never left. 

"Your ranch is so dark and dreary," she tells him, her eyes shining. "You know what would really liven it up?" 

"Flowers?" John asks her, pinching the side of his face between thumb and index finger while giving Faith a rueful smile. 

"Flowers!" their sister exclaims happily. 

They fall into a good-natured back and forth, and Jacob shares a look with Joseph over the rim of his glass. The Father looks pensive. Tired. 

_ Burdened with great purpose. _

Jacob might be the eldest of the Seed brothers, but these days Joseph seems older than him. The mantle of leadership is a heavy one, and Jacob is glad that he's not the one that has to wear it. 

He mulls over what Joseph told them with John and Faith’s benign bickering in the background, trying to figure out how he feels about it. The Father’s instructions aren’t new - they’ve been pressed with the importance of giving the Deputy every opportunity to join them for as long as possible since she took up the banner of the Resistance - but their urgency is. Jacob had originally planned to cull her once she'd fulfilled her purpose. He's not sure why he feels relieved that's no longer an option. The success of the Project now seemingly hinges on the Deputy joining them. And it's up to Jacob to show her her Purpose, whatever that means. The Father has a way of capitalising words that imbues them with an importance beyond their usual meaning, and Jacob knows that when Joseph referred to the Deputy's Purpose, he wasn't talking about taking down Eli. Jacob doesn't know what Purpose he's supposed to show her. He knows better than to ask - when it comes to tasks that are part of the Lord's work, the Father is never anything but frustratingly cryptic. Jacob finds it's best to simply get on with things without breaking his head over it. Joseph will let him know if he's straying from the Path. And Jacob will do what needs to be done, just like he always has.

For the Project. 

For his family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Local murderous maniacs enjoy wholesome family dinner. 
> 
> I like to think the Seed brothers used to have genuinely loving, closely knit relationships with each other. They still do to some extent, but the roles they've taken up in the Project have been putting increasing amounts of stress on those relationships, and have started changing their family dynamics as a result. I really wish we'd gotten to see them interact with each other more in the game, especially John and Jacob.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gentle reminder that this fic goes some pretty dark places. Please mind the tags, particularly the Graphic Violence archive warning.
> 
> Trigger warning for this chapter: Drowning  
> Song for this chapter: Violence (Enough Is Enough) - A Day to Remember

Doubt is a funny thing. 

Rook used to think of doubt as a tool. As the weight that balances the scales of morality and practicality. When one side weighs too heavy with doubt, it's time to make adjustments. For the past few weeks though, her collection of doubts has started to weigh so heavily on both sides of the scales that Rook is starting to have difficulty telling right from wrong. Doubt has become a poison that drains her strength and clouds her vision, much like the Bliss does. 

Hope County is under siege by a violent cult that seeks to rob ordinary people of their possessions, their homes, their free will; and when the Reaping is met with resistance, their lives. The atrocities committed in the name of Eden's Gate are as numerous as they are vile. Torture, slavery, brainwashing, chemical zombification - Rook has seen every attack on their victims' humanity imaginable. Has been subjected to several of them herself. The Project is a plague on the land, taking what it desires and destroying what is left. Eden's Gate has blessed her with an enemy as clearly-cut, objectively evil as it gets. In her experience, when it comes to war, that's a rare luxury. 

Rook is painfully aware that fighting a war is exactly what she's doing. When all this started, she'd held out hope of help arriving eventually, in some shape or form. The Marshalls, or when things turned from bad to worse, the Army. But as days turned to weeks, and the scraps of news they got from the radio started painting a confused, concerning picture of the world outside the valley, she came to terms with the fact that no one is coming to save them. The Project has effectively cut off Hope County from the rest of the world. The Resistance is on its own, fighting an enemy that will stop at nothing to reach its goals. They have no choice but to do the same. Rook joined the army with the idea that she'd be fighting for her country and its people, and came home devastated by the knowledge she'd been used as a weapon for corporate interests. Now she's  _ actually _ fighting for her land, for her community, for its hopes and dreams and way of life. Directly, and undeniably. 

And still she doubts. 

It shouldn't be this way. Whether it's Joseph's forked tongue or Faith's treacherous flowers - she should let neither of them tempt her into seeing them as  _ people  _ instead of the monsters that they are. Rook should know better than to let the Seeds' rhetoric get inside her head. She has seen and felt proof of their madness and cruelty first-hand. She shouldn't let their words make her second-guess her actions, or try to put herself in the shoes of the cult she's fighting. But Faith is an expert at twisting reality in front of someone's eyes, making them doubt what their own senses are telling them. Rook can't help but wonder if there isn't some truth in her lies, despite everything she's seen and heard. 

The reason why she's so susceptible to Faith's siren song is both obvious and hard to acknowledge. As much as she tries to banish the thought of Jacob Seed from her mind, part of her is incapable of handling the knowledge that her Soulmate is one of the monsters she's fighting. It can't help but try and see him as a person. Not a good person - no good person could condone the evil committed in the name of Eden's Gate, let alone participate in it. But a flawed, misguided,  _ desperate _ person. A person who is convinced, who sincerely  _ believes _ , that he's doing the right thing. That in the light of the doom that awaits humanity, the horrors Eden's Gate inflicts are justified. That Jacob does what he does because he's honestly trying to protect his people in a race against a doomsday clock. And some of Rook's urge to see her Soulmate as a person can't help but be carried over to every Peggie she takes down and every Seed she thwarts.

She hates it. Hates the doubt that fills her with every kill. Hates how every time Faith tells her she doesn’t understand, that all she does is bring destruction and take away hope, part of her wonders. Whether it's just the Siren's usual tactic, or whether she has some intuitive or mystic understanding of the doubt that plagues Rook's mind, Faith plays flawlessly on her uncertainty and empathy. It gets under her skin and enrages her at the same time. Rook  _ knows  _ she's being manipulated, but that doesn't stop Faith's gaslighting from working. It doesn’t stop her from questioning if what she’s doing is  _ right _ . The knowledge that Jacob Seed is her Soulmate is a weakness, a breach in her defenses that allows the cult's insidious poison to seep through. She's powerless against it, and it terrifies her. 

Rook deals with it the only way she knows: with defiance. She takes her fear, her helplessness, her doubt and hatred for those that instill it, and turns them into fuel for the burning rage that drives her crusade against the cult. She welcomes the anger. Needs it. It feels righteous,  _ is  _ righteous. It gives her the strength to set aside her doubts and do what must be done. To meet Faith's pretty lies and twisted truths with indifference, to fight through the Bliss and its illusions. It takes all the fury she can muster. Every last bullet she brought into Faith's garden. And when the fog clears, when the untouchable fae turns into a creature of flesh and blood, Rook's rage burns brightly still. Faith walks into the stream on muddy, stumbling feet, still talking, still  _ lying.  _ Still trying to pretend she's an innocent girl, slain by the wicked, evil Deputy. She lays herself down in the flower-strewn water like some tragic Ophelia, pure and free of sin until the very end, and Rook's anger roars at the sheer mockery of it all, the blatant perversion of the truth. How many people did Faith turn into mindless slaves while claiming she saved them? How many voices did she take away, painting the truth they spoke as evil? How many did she lead into oblivion while telling them it was Paradise?

Rook wades into the stream, bends down over Faith’s floating form, and closes her hands around her throat. Pushes Faith’s head underneath the water and holds it there with all the strength she has left. Later, she will feel shame for the pleasure she takes in this moment. Right now, with Faith finally abandoning her angelic pretense as she struggles and fights desperately against being held down, Rook can't feel anything but jubilant satisfaction. Faith's flailing turns the calm stream into a murky pool. Rook catches glimpses of the other woman’s face as she forces it underwater, her usual beatific expression twisted into one of primal fear. She was already dying; had made her peace with it. But the human body fights for its life with every last kick and claw when pushed. Rook relishes in taking away Faith's final choice of a dignified death, turning her last moments into a violent, ugly spasm. The Siren's nails frantically rake bloody strips into her arms; the damage she does tangible, visible at last. Rook doesn’t let up until Faith stops struggling, and not for a long while after, breathing heavily with exertion and a sick kind of release that tastes like copper and ashes on the back of her tongue. 

She doesn't have time to linger on what she's done. There's Sheriff Whitehorse to rescue, and Faith's bunker to blow up, and the jail to secure - and after that everything fades into the nausea and pain of a Bliss comedown when she'd been treading dangerously close to losing herself in the mist. Rook wakes up surrounded by gratitude and well-wishes, by people calling her a hero and celebrating her victories. She doesn’t join them. She doesn’t want to celebrate the blood she painted all across the Henbane, just as surely as Jacob did in the mountains. She doesn’t want to celebrate Faith's screaming mouth filling with water and petals, her wide eyes wild and pleading, the delicate pink of her face colouring a sickly shade of blue. Rook strips the bandages from her shredded arms despite Doctor Lindsay's protests. She's not going to hide what she's done, like Faith did. She wears the long gouges in her flesh openly, welcomes the way they sting when exposed to the air. If they scar, let them. She can take a leaf out of John's book and wear her sins on her skin. 

John. Rook will have to deal with him next. She's needed in Holland Valley, she tells herself. Dutch tells her the same, informing her that John has stepped up his conversion efforts in her absence. Leaving feels like cowardice all the same. All Rook does is run, in the end. She ran from the reality of finding her Soulmate, and now she runs from the aftermath of what her wrath has wrought. At least John won't have to wonder what her sin is anymore. Rook spelled it out for him in giant fiery letters as she burned one third of the county to ash. 

As the flames die in Rook's wake, so does the rage that sustained her. She still has plenty of anger left; for the cult and their brutality, for the folks that would rather shut themselves away than help out their neighbors, for fate or chance that bonded her to a monstrous enemy. But the all-consuming rage is gone. Without its sense of power, her righteous fury no longer feels justified. More like the frustrated lashing out of a woman desperate for some sense of control, desperate to assure herself she's different from the monsters she fights. 

Rook bids the Cougars farewell and makes her way back to Fall's End, where she's welcomed with open arms by Pastor Jerome and Mary May. From what they tell her, her absence in the Valley gave the Resistance a temporary reprieve. But following the heavy blow of Faith's death, the Project has turned outright vicious in retaliation. Abductions have become more frequent and brazen. Outside of the areas under Resistance control, the roadsides are littered with corpses turned into gruesome displays, wrapped in barbed wire and stuffed with Bliss flowers. Intended to intimidate and demoralise. It's psychological warfare, brutal and effective. Rook thinks she has a pretty good idea where John got his inspiration. Wrapped in pagan imagery rather than a simple cloth bag, but the concept is the same. Jacob Seed knows how to wage a war, and from what she's seeing in Holland Valley, he's been teaching his baby brother. War seems to follow Rook no matter where she goes, and the Soldier's presence follows it like a blood-drenched ghost. 

_ There's nowhere you can run.  _

Rook can't run, but she can do the next best thing - hide. From the intel Dutch is able to give her, the Baptist's forces are prepared for her potential return now she's liberated the Henbane. However, their preparations seem to have been tailored mainly towards the high damage, frontal tactics she'd adopted in Faith's region. Planes and roadblocks do little to deter an enemy able to remain unseen, and Rook becomes a shadow once more. She slips silently through the gaps in the Project's defenses. Grace and Nick provide her with cover fire whenever needed, but most of the time she works alone. Or she would, if Jacob's voice didn't ride along in the back of her head once more. Reverting to her usual tactics seems to have reawakened it. His presence has faded with time, but it still lingers. Rook tries not to think about how part of her welcomes its resurgence. How something inside her is comforted by it. Strengthened. 

She could have dealt with the return of her Soulmate's voice in her head if it wasn’t for the dreams. They start familiar enough - red rooms and hallways, fire and blood, Jacob directing and praising her. But whereas his presence was always limited to a disembodied voice before, in Rook's dreams, he comes to her. He guides her hands with his fingers wrapped over her own. His beard bristles against her neck as he talks to her, his breath warming her cheek. He fits his body against hers to firm her stance, his weight solid and reassuring at her back. And with each passing night and dream, the battle fades, until all that is remains is Jacob pressing against her, his hands wrapped around her, his voice a quiet murmur in her ear while he tells her things that have nothing to do with killing or sacrifice. Rook wakes from them burning with shame and desire in equal measure. They make her feel like a traitor to the people she's fighting for. Like a traitor to  _ herself.  _ How can she wake up wet and wanting for someone like the Project's Soldier, after all he's done? How can she feel drawn to him knowing he's been fucking around in her head for some purpose she still doesn't know? Any hope she still had left that Jacob Seed isn't her Soulmate evaporates under her inability to stop her growing attraction to him. She loses sleep trying to escape the dreams, and while she's awake, she loses focus struggling with their contents.

Her capture comes with a sense of inevitability. John marks her two weeks after her return to the Valley, starting a game of hide and seek that stretches over three full days and as many nights. Rook takes to the forested foothills for refuge, but fatigue and emotional turmoil take their eventual toll. She's smoked out with flamethrowers, hounded by attack dogs, and in the end a Bliss bullet to the shoulder takes her down. Rook crashes to the ground and ends up rolling halfway down a steep incline, bouncing off rocks and hitting trees. She comes to a halt on her back, her ribs screaming in pain as she heaves with exhausted laughter that feels dangerously close to madness. 

_ There's nowhere you can run.  _

The Bliss takes her, wraps her in blessedly dreamless sleep. Rook wakes up strapped to a chair with a bright light pointed at her, every fibre of her body aching. Someone is bustling about just outside the circle of light, taking things from a container and messing about with wires. After a few minutes the figure turns towards her, and when they notice she’s awake, they step forward. The light casts John Seed’s features into sharp definition, and his smile is as sharp as the knife he’s holding.

"Good morning, Deputy," the Baptist greets her. "We have work to do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rook's got the Jacob cooties. Yuck.


	6. Chapter 6

Faith's death comes as a shock to all of them. 

Jacob can't think what possessed his ‘sister’ to enter a personal confrontation with the Deputy. Did she underestimate the Scourge of the Sinners, after all the evidence she witnessed of how dangerous their enemy is? Was she overly confident in the power of her Bliss to give her the upper hand? Or was Faith simply so anxious to fulfill the Father's task that she brought herself face to face with the Deputy to try and show her the Path? 

Joseph is genuinely distraught over the loss of their sister. He's always been closest to her, being the one that adopted her into the family. He mourns Faith openly, spilling his pain out in a public address that Jacob privately feels isn't a good idea. It can only hearten the Resistance, give them hope, even with Joseph's added assurance that those responsible for their sister's death will be punished. 

John is clearly stricken as well, despite his attempts to hide it. Jacob knows it did his little brother good to have someone around who was less grave than his elder siblings. Someone lighthearted and joyful, who reminded John of how he used to be, once. John was never as close to Faith as Joseph, but despite his frequent griping about her frivolous nature, Jacob knows he enjoyed her playfulness and bright spirit. 

As for himself, he's more worried about Eden's Gate losing operations, resources and territory, and the morale boost taking down one of the Heralds undoubtedly must be for the Resistance, than the loss of Faith's current incarnation. As far as he's concerned, they can always get another Faith. It's not like they haven't done it before. 

The rest of the Project - their Family, Joseph insists, but Jacob has never managed to see them that way - is understandably devastated. The transition of one Faith to the other never made many waves until now. It was easy enough to transfer the role from one girl to the next before the First Seal was broken. But under the current circumstances, there's no denying the Siren's absence. While she likely still haunts the Bliss in the minds of those that dwell in it, her presence outside of it has disappeared completely. Her leadership, such as it was, is gone. Her bunker is destroyed. Her region is occupied by the enemy. And for the people that found hope and solace in her, her loss is a tragedy that's keenly felt.

Not for Jacob's people, of course, but many of the Project's adherents are hit hard by the news nonetheless. And while his warriors are secure in their strength without having to find comfort in Bliss, the strategic loss of the Henbane hits their morale as well. Suddenly, part of their southern flank is no longer friendly territory, and requires many more soldiers to patrol its borders. With the production and supply of Bliss coming to a stop, Jacob is having to ration its use in the creation of Judges and Chosen. Without a steady supply of Angels, he needs to be more sparing in their allocation, as they can't simply be replaced once they collapse. He has to put more soldiers on menial tasks rather than focus his efforts on weeding out the Whitetail Militia. Even with the increased influx of converts from Holland Valley, everyone is feeling the pressure losing the Henbane has put them under. 

Jacob makes do with what he has as best as he can, as he's always done, but he can't help the frustration building up inside him. Frustration with the Father, in particular. How can Jacob protect his family if Joseph won't let him act outside of his region? Why doesn't his brother listen to him, when he claims to need his expertise and experience? Jacob can't help but feel that if he'd been given reign over the Project's security in all of the county, the whole Henbane fiasco could have been prevented. If John had control over collection and conversion in the Whitetails, Jacob could have rooted out Eli's band of misfits long before now, with his soldiers freed up from trying to manage the population and their possessions. A ditzy flower child might be the perfect friendly face to soothe people's minds and fears, but she shouldn't have been given control over the logistic machine of Bliss production, or dealing with a citizen's militia riling people up and trying to wrest control of the area from the Project. 

Jacob trusts Joseph, has to trust him, but it angers and pains him that the Father doesn't seem to trust him in turn. Joseph's genius at charismatic leadership is unparalleled, but he's no warrior. He doesn't know about combat, or strategy, or resource management. That's why Jacob is his general. Is supposed to be his general, at any rate, but what general can lead their army effectively under the circumstances the Father has forced on him? He tells himself to trust Joseph, to trust the Plan. But if Jacob is honest with himself, it frustrates the hell out of him that his brother simply won't listen to him. And that frustration is slowly but surely turning into resentment, much as he tries to stop it. 

He finds himself oddly lacking resentment towards the Deputy, despite her being the objective, direct cause of his difficulties. She's only doing what he is doing, in the end; just on the opposing side. Fighting this war with everything she has, using every strategy available to her and hurting the enemy in every way she can. He has to grudgingly admit he has some measure of respect for her, despite her weakness and deliberate rejection of what he taught her. She certainly shows the most promise for actually being able to complete his trials and make her sacrifice. In training her, he's learned she can already fight like one of his wolves. In studying her weaknesses, he's come to see her strengths as well. In trying to understand her erratic behaviour, he's made himself try to think like her, and found her clever and resourceful, if stubborn and unpredictable. Jacob has always seen the value in keeping his enemies close. It's certainly been useful in his dealings with Eli, since his old friend turned on Eden's Gate. And while he doesn't doubt that studying and trying to understand the Deputy will be useful in preparing her for her task as well, Jacob can't help but feel vaguely unsettled at his developing admiration for her. 

The particular kind of admiration he's started to develop for her, to be more precise. 

Tracking her movements, keeping up to date with her actions and trying to figure her out is one thing, but the things Jacob finds himself picturing when he thinks of getting his hands back on the Deputy are something else entirely. Far less strategic, and a lot more… primal. He doesn't chide himself for his attraction once he becomes aware of it. Humans are only animals that managed to fool themselves into thinking they aren't, after all. It's only natural for him to develop an interest in a suitable mate. It's just a damned inconvenient distraction, and it worries him somewhat that he's apparently come to think of the Deputy as a suitable mate, despite her obvious failings. She's attractive, of course, from a purely physical standpoint. One of the most attractive women he's ever met, in fact. It's really no wonder he reacts to her the way he does. She's frequently on his mind, for a variety of perfectly legitimate reasons, and all things considered it isn't surprising that his thoughts of her take a turn towards the carnal every now and then. And if said thoughts turn insistent enough to require… relief, every so often, that's nothing any man doesn't face once in a while. 

Nevermind that Jacob hasn't felt the need to jerk it over the thought of an attractive woman since he's been out of his thirties. Nevermind that the thought of the Deputy underneath him (or on top of him, or beside him, or against a convenient wall or bent over any surface available, his imagination seems happy to provide a wide variety of options) has him furiously fucking into his hand in the privacy of his quarters, despite masturbation being forbidden to followers of the Father, just like fornication is. The force he comes with when he thinks of burying himself inside the Deputy and pumping her full with his seed is dizzying, but he writes it off as a sudden spike in his libido, brought on by elevated levels of stress, or aggression, or whatever the fuck else is going on. Hormones, that's all it is. Inconvenient, illogical, and ill-advised, but ultimately inconsequential. 

And he is definitely not disappointed when reports emerge of the Deputy's presence in Holland Valley, rather than the Whitetail Mountains. Nor does he acknowledge the possessive sting he feels whenever he hears John address the Deputy over one of the private channels. He's sure there's a perfectly good reason why his brother talks to their enemy in an almost intimate manner. He just can't seem to think of one. John's words don't match his tone, but Jacob can't shake off the feeling the two have shared something the rest of the world isn't privy to. And it bothers him. 

_Lust. Envy._

Sins that are new to him. He bears both Pride and Sloth, one across his back, the latter over his heart, just above the words he gave up hope on decades ago. Jacob wonders how John would react if he were to confess his new-found sins. What his brother would say if Jacob told him who inspired them. He should. Confess, bring his sins out into the light. Atone for them and have them struck through, as an example and reminder that none of them are free of sin, not even the Father and his Heralds. But confessing would mean admitting his interest in the Deputy is more than a surge of hormones. That she has managed to strike a weakness into him. 

_Pride_ , Jacob's guilt tells him, but he silences it, just like he silences the part of him that aches to defy the Father and pluck the Deputy out of John's domain. He doesn't quite manage to do the same with the pleasure he takes in her return to more methodical tactics. He shouldn't feel satisfaction at hearing about her approaching a situation the same way he would have, or that she's favouring a .50 caliber long-scoped rifle these days. Shouldn't take pride in her accomplishments in the Valley. Her every victory only serves to make his life more difficult. She's pushing the Project hard. She's pushing John hard. The Baptist's obsession with the Deputy only grows with each blow she deals him. Jacob is pretty sure he's not the only Seed who'd like to get his hands on the Deputy in the literal, sinful sense. But she enrages John as much as she arouses him, and when the youngest Seed brother is truly incensed, he gets reckless. Jacob isn't entirely confident that in his anger, John won't make the same mistake Faith did. And while Faith can be replaced - his brother can't. 

Jacob ends up flying down to John's ranch in an attempt to soothe his own fears, as well as advise his brother to take every caution possible when it comes to the Deputy. What he finds does nothing to calm his unease. John welcomes him with pleased surprise, but it's clear that his brother is agitated and on edge. Distracted. Jacob doesn't comment when John breaks out a half-empty bottle of whiskey as they settle in front of the large fireplace. He's the last person qualified to chastise someone for indulging in a vice, considering what he gets up to in his scarce spare time. They skip the pleasantries in favour of exchanging news, and while Jacob tactfully avoids inquiring into John's progress with their Deputy, his brother seems eager to grasp the opportunity to vent about the devil vexing him. 

"I swear she gets off on fucking my shit up," John bristles, gesturing with his glass. The amber liquid inside sloshes dangerously close to the edge, and Jacob eyes it with some concern. "Literally fucking creams herself over destroying everything I've built. It's- it's _personal_ , Jake. She _knows_. She knows I have to make her atone and she just- _taunts_ me with it."

John takes a sloppy drink from his whiskey, the glass shaking slightly in his hand. His eyes are wide, showing too much white, and the tension in his voice can't seem to decide if it wants to turn into a laugh or a sob. Seeing his brother like this is a shock. Jacob had no idea how badly the Deputy's presence has been affecting John, and seeing it in person is nothing short of alarming. 

"The hellcat rubs it in my fucking face like she's in heat for it. Don't let her fool you. The way she fights might have changed, but her sin hasn't. She's- she's so full of Wrath it can't help but spill from her no matter where she goes or how she commits her crimes. She glories in it. And the Father thinks she can be _saved_?"

John lets out a brittle laugh and gulps down another mouthful of whiskey. 

"She needs to be punished, not saved. Or if I can't punish her - I'll punish every single person she holds dear. I'll take her Wrath out on their flesh instead of hers. And I'll make sure she knows it's _her_ fault. _Her_ sin they're paying for. I'll make her confess in front of them so they can all see what she really is."

He looks Jacob in the eye, agonised rage burning in his gaze, mingled with something dark and possessive. 

"I want to make her _scream_ , Jake. I want to make her scream until all she can do is whisper 'Yes', over and over and over until she chokes on it."

John's knuckles are white with how hard he's gripping his glass, and Jacob gently pries it from his fingers under the guise of pouring both of them another measure. He was prepared for worrying about his brother, though admittedly not to this extent. What he wasn't prepared for is the overwhelming urge to drive his fist into John’s face. It doesn't make sense - he loves John, loves his brother with all he has. There's absolutely no reason why hearing him express his desire to inflict pain on the Deputy would make Jacob want to punch his lights out. It rattles him more than seeing John half-crazed with rage and frustration, or hearing just how bad things have gotten in the Valley since the Deputy returned to it. There's something so wrong about the impulse that it makes him sick to his stomach, and he sits reeling in silence as John catches his breath from his outburst. 

Jacob spends the rest of his visit trying to tell, ask, plead John to be careful, and feeling like his brother barely hears what he says. He wishes he could stay longer, make sure John listens to what he has to say, but he can't. He's going against the Father's instructions simply by being here, and if he stays here too long, Joseph might find out. 

"Don't underestimate her," Jacob urges, while John stares at the firelight dancing across the bearskin rug spread out in front of his leather couch. "She's dangerous, Johnny. She's clever, and strong, and faster than you'd think. I've seen her like you haven't. I didn't fucking have to train her as much as point her in the right direction - that woman was already a weapon. And I've honed and sharpened her. Keep two of your Chosen with you at all times if you have to get up close and personal, you hear me?"

"You don't gotta tell me what our Deputy is capable of," John grouses at him with a slight slur to his words. "I've seen more of her than you could ever imagine, Jake. But Pride comes before the fucking fall. She thinks she's untouchable, that she can do whatever she wants and there won't be _consequences_. But I'll fucking show her. I'll make her wear her Sin for all to see. And then I'll rip it out of her flesh strip by bloody strip."

_I've seen more of her than you could ever imagine._

The twisted feeling in Jacob's chest at those words is ugly, grotesque beyond reason. It almost drowns out another violent impulse that strikes him at hearing John threaten the Deputy again. He knocks back his whiskey in an attempt to wash down the twin traitor emotions. It doesn't work, and he leaves the ranch unsettled and conflicted, as well as burdened with a sense of dread. Dread that only grows as he returns to the Whitetails, leaving John, the Deputy and their impending clash behind. When he hears John has sent his Chosen for her a few days later, it swells to a heavy, cancerous mass, dragging behind him with every move. 

And then the Deputy is caught, and the dread rises to loom over Jacob’s head like Damocles’ sword, ready to fall at any moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh no, the cooties are spreading.
> 
> I am weak for the Seed brothers fiercely loving each other.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters today because y'all have been absolutely lovely in the comments and I appreciate it immensely ♥ 
> 
> Trigger warning for this chapter: Torture  
> Song for this chapter: Comfort Eagle - Cake

"Hey, John," Rook slurs in reply to the Baptist's greeting. The lingering effect of the Bliss makes her thoughts sluggish, and for some reason she's feeling a little giggly. "Didya miss me?" 

"More than you know," John tells her, giving her a winning smile. "I've been looking forward to having you in my chair again - oh, so much."

"What is it with you Seed men and tying me to chairs," Rook complains, testing the way she's bound. Zip ties rather than ropes. She might be able to work with this. 

"Don't even try to get out of them this time, darling," John says, wiggling the knife in his hand at her in an admonishing gesture. "I'm not about to leave you on your own again, now I've finally got you back."

"You know it wouldn't ever work between us, John," Rook sighs. "I think we should see other people."

"You're talkative for once," John remarks. "Hold still for me. Wouldn't want to ruin my canvas before I get started-" 

Rook sucks in a breath as John leans in and brings the knife closer, but all he ends up cutting is fabric. Her shirt first, right down the front - she has no idea where her jacket has gone - and the straps of her sports bra next. She tries to hide the spike of panic shooting through her as he peels the straps away from her chest. Not successfully, judging by the knowing smile John gives her. 

"Don't get too excited, darling," he tuts. "I wouldn't touch a sinner before they've been _cleansed._ "

"I don't think I'm the one who's a bit too excited about this, _honey,_ " Rook bites back, watching cautiously as John pulls out a rolling stool and sits himself down in front of her. "Besides, I recall you cleansing me rather _thoroughly_ already. Where's Hudson? She not invited to the party this time?" 

The room they're in doesn't look familiar. It doesn't look anything like any of the rooms she's seen inside John's bunker, in fact. More like a finished basement of sorts. No windows, a concrete floor, wood panelled walls. The smell of fresh sawdust hangs in the air, laid over the faint coppery tones of old blood. She wonders where they are. 

"Oh, no. It's just us, this time." John gives her another mild smile, but his eyes shine almost feverishly. "This is a _special_ occasion, after all. Atonement is… _sacred,_ Deputy. A beautiful and holy thing. I fear that in all this-" He breaks off into a soft chuckle, and it scares Rook more than any of his raging over the radio ever did. "In all the _passion_ of our relationship, I lost sight of that. Forgive me."

 _Relationship_? It’s a running joke-turned-theory among the Resistance that the Baptist has a thing for the Deputy, but Rook doesn’t think she’s ever done anything to give John the impression his fixation on her is in any way reciprocated. Not unless seeing his silos getting blown up really does it for him.

"Like hell," she rasps. 

John narrows his eyes as he leans in closer. There's the sound of something tearing in his lap, and Rook spends a bewildered moment wondering if he's actually popped a hard-on so stiff it's burst through the front of his pants, before his hand comes up to set the opened packaging of a disinfectant wipe aside. 

"You will," John says, with that deceptive, dangerous calm. "You will forgive me. For all of this. When we are together in the Garden, you will thank me."

"You're out of your fucking mind," Rook grits out, her skin breaking out in goosebumps as John drags the wipe carefully over the area of skin he’s bared.

"I should have listened to the Father," he says with another little chuckle. The sound is like ice water running down Rook's back. "I heard his words, but I didn't _listen._ You have to love them, John, he told me. And I didn't listen. I didn't understand. But I do now."

John looks up at her, pale blue eyes piercing and sincere. So like Jacob's that it makes Rook shiver. 

"I do this out of _love_ , Deputy. You will come to see that, even if you can't understand it right now."

"Have you been huffing your own Bliss?" Rook asks, alarmed at the way John is acting, what he's saying. "I'm- I’m fucking serious, Seed. Are you high right now?" 

John shakes his head and gives the top of her chest another pass with the wipe, before tossing it aside on the table. He pulls a pair of disposable rubber gloves from a box next, and puts them on, wiggling his fingers at her once he's finished. 

"Go ahead and mock us, Deputy. I can finally see your derision, your _Wrath,_ for what it is."

He pulls something closer on the table next to him. It's a small machine, with a button and a row of lights on the front, and a dial at the top. John picks up a strange-looking plastic pen with a long wire coming from the end, plugs it into the machine, and switches it on. Rook has seen a tattoo gun before, and whatever this pen thing is, she's pretty sure it doesn't have anything to do with tattooing. 

"It's _fear,_ Deputy. Fear for what you don't understand. Fear to let go of your preconceptions and accept the love we are willing to offer you. So I will help you. I will help you let go. I will help you say Yes. It won't be easy, it won't be painless, but it will be _worth it._ "

John gives her a broad smile, his eyes shining with wild emotion despite the serene expression laid over his features. 

"John, what the fuck is that thing?" Rook demands, her eyes glued to the strange pen as he lifts it in a graceful gesture. The Baptist has always unnerved her; scared her, even, on occasion. Right now, his odd behaviour and fever-glistening eyes have her nothing short of terrified. She digs her heels in and tries to push away, but the chair she's bound to seems to be bolted to the floor. It doesn't give even a fraction, and she's powerless to stop the pen's tip from coming closer, hovering over her sternum. 

"Electrocautery is so much more _civilised_ than branding," John murmurs at her, his tone fond, almost loving. "So much closer to tattooing, too. I figured, seeing as we already know your Sin, Deputy, that we use the opportunity to have you Atone for it while pulling it from your soul and displaying it on your skin. Two birds with one stone, and all that. Of course - a simple tattoo is nowhere near sufficient in terms of pain when it comes to Atoning."

John draws a deep, blissful breath, as if sharing his next words brings him a genuine sense of happiness. 

"Scarification, though. Scarification is a _process_ , much like Atonement is. The longer it takes the brand to heal, the deeper and clearer the scar. So it's best to open up the wound from time to time. Make sure its meaning truly sinks in. A brand can take _months_ to heal that way. So we'll have plenty of time for you to atone for your numerous sins."

"You're fucking _insane,_ " Rook sobs, trying to squirm away from the tip of John's pen as he pulls his stool closer, until he's almost wedged between her legs. 

"Hold still, darling. I wouldn't want to ruin your pretty skin more than I have to," John tells her, the tip of his tongue flitting out between his lips as he focuses on her chest. 

Sweat trickles down the back of Rook's neck as she desperately tries to think of a way to get out of her predicament. She'd need some time to get out of the zip ties - time she doesn't have. John is hovering carefully out of headbutt range, and the way her ribs ache with each panicked breath tells her she's bruised a couple at least. Her mind is still fogged up with the lingering effects of Bliss, and she can't _think,_ can't see a way out, can't see any means of escape- 

The tip of the pen touches her skin, and Rook yelps as the machine clicks and sharp, burning pain sears into her chest. A horrible acrid stench scorches her nostrils, and after a moment she realises she's smelling her own burnt flesh. 

"It hurts, I know," John says in that maddeningly soothing tone. "That's how you know it's working."

He smiles up at her, the look in his eyes a strange mix of sympathetic and fascinated. Rook bites the inside of her cheek to work through the pain. It's worse than getting cut - so much worse. The pain radiates out from the path the pen etches into her, until her entire chest feels like it's been set on fire. 

She manages to grit her teeth and hold back anything more than frantic whimpers through the first letter. The second has her screaming, cursing, hurling every insult under the sun into John's patient smile. She's howling by the third, panting and sobbing after the fourth. The fifth and final letter has her shaking with exhausted, almost silent tears. John wipes them away before they can trickle into the weeping burns he wrote into her skin, dutiful and diligent. 

"Confess," he whispers to her, patting her cheeks dry with a gentle care that makes her want to heave. "Unburden yourself of Sin."

"Go fuck yourself," Rook croaks through a throat raw from screaming. 

John sets the pen aside, switches the machine off with a sigh. He looks disappointed, but she can't tell if it's genuine, or if he's secretly pleased she's not giving in. He takes a bottle from the table and screws off its cap, and gestures vaguely in her direction with it. 

"There's that Wrath, still," he says mildly. "It's a poison, Deputy. You think you use it to harm others, but it ends up harming yourself most of all. Trust me, I know. Confess, and we can work on freeing you from it."

He brings the bottle up and tips half its contents out over Rook's chest. The sting of the iodine pouring onto her burns is almost as bad as the cauterising itself, and Rook screams until something in her throat feels like it snaps. Ragged breaths pull from her lungs when the red mist of pain fades from her vision. John is looking at her with an almost curious interest, like she's a fly whose legs he's pulling out, and Rook finds herself so utterly _done_ with him that she opens her mouth and lets the words spill forth without thinking about them. 

" _Fine._ You want a confession?" she pants, blinking her eyes furiously to clear the tears from them. "You want a fucking confession? You want to hear about my _wrath?_ " 

John's face lights up, and he looks ready to say something, but Rook doesn't let him, cuts him off before he can as much as part his lips. 

"Your entire fucking cult has pissed me off from day one," she rasps. Her throat aches with the effort of speaking, but not as much as the burning agony of her cauterised skin stretching over her chest with each pained gasp of breath. "Your sanctimonious _bullshit._ Your holier-than-thou smug fucking faces. You Seeds preaching without practicing your own goddamned gospel - where's your fucking strips of skin, John? Why do you get to cross out your sins instead of stapling them to a fucking wall? You're nothing but a bunch of vile hypocrites, every fucking one of you."

John clears his throat and screws the cap back onto the bottle of iodine. 

"I'll have you know that-" 

"No," Rook snarls. "Shut up. You wanted me to talk- _I'm talking._ All you fuckers ever do is project your own damage, your own goddamned _sins,_ onto the rest of us. How dare we come into your home- how dare you come into _ours?_ How dare you call us sinners while you inflict every horror known to man on us? How dare you claim you're saving people when all you do is prey on the weak, break people down and take away their will and then proclaim they've made _the right choice?_ A choice made under duress is _never_ a real fucking choice, John, no matter how long or how hard you tell yourself that it is."

Rook gulps for breath, and John just looks at her with a mix of delight and baffled surprise. 

"So yeah, I'm angry. I'm fucking _livid._ And you wanna know something?" 

A horrid little laugh bubbles up in her chest, and she coughs as she chokes on it, tears welling in her eyes at the pain as her chest shakes with the spasms.

"Squeezing the fucking life out of your sister felt _good,_ " she gets out, laughing and sobbing at the same time. "She died as ugly as she lived, and it felt _right._ No bullets, John. Not even a knife. Just my two hands around her throat and the water filling her lungs and it felt like fucking _justice._ And I can't- I can't stop seeing her face whenever I close my eyes, but I don't fucking regret it." 

She gasps for air, chokes out another laugh that feels like a wail. 

"She was _terrified,_ John. She was _pleading_ with me," Rook sobs angrily. " _And I would do it again._ I'd fucking do it again. I held her down and I watched her die and I _don't regret it,_ because she was a fucking _monster._ "

She has to pause for breath again, and through the haze of tears she sees John rise from his stool and sink down onto one knee in front of her. He grasps her hands with his own and gives her a smile so honest, radiant and filled with almost pained happiness that it's hard to watch. 

"Yes," he says fervently, squeezing her fingers as if to encourage her. " _Yes._ That's it. You're doing so well- _Yes._ "

Rook is panting with pain and exertion, sweat running down her back while a sick chill shivers down her spine, and John Seed kneels in front of her as if in worship, murmuring 'Yes' at her as if it's a prayer. Clutching her hands with a tremble in his fingers. Tears and some kind of hideous love shining in his eyes. 

"You know the worst of it?" she sobs, not entirely sure anymore if this is a rant or a ploy or a confession, or all of the above. "You know the absolute worst, most miserable thing of all?" 

"What?" John whispers, rapt with attention. The room could be in flames around them right now, and Rook doesn't think he would even notice. The entirety of his focus is settled on her, its weight almost a tangible presence. 

"Despite all of it, everything you Seeds have fucking done to this place, to _me,_ despite _everything,_ " Rook chokes out, forcing herself to look into John's fever-bright eyes, to hold his gaze with her own as she lays open her soul to him. "Despite everything, I _still_ can't stop- I would still- I still want to-" 

The Baptist straightens up slowly, still kneeling but rising closer, his eyes flicking between hers and her lips. 

"Yes," he breathes, the word a blissful sigh, longing and hopeful and reverent. 

"I still can't stop myself from- from wanting to _fuck-_ " Rook groans, letting her head hang forward a little, bringing it closer to his. 

" _Yes,_ " John moans, leaning in, head tilting up in supplication, his eyes darkening as his lids grow heavy with desire. 

"-your brother," Rook gasps out, and jerks her head back and forwards again, bringing her forehead down onto John's face with every bit of force she can muster. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man it's just a cootie infestation over here.
> 
> [Electrocautery ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cauterization#Electrocautery) is sometimes used as a tool in certain types of [scarification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarification). [Human branding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_branding) has some interesting/awful historical uses.


End file.
